Cowards, guns go together

Friday

Apr 19, 2013 at 12:01 AM

The U.S. Senate just keeps earning its low ratings. Wednesday's refusal to enact reasonable new restrictions on gun ownership shows how a combination of cowardice and institutional inaction end up thwarting the will of 90 percent of the American people. It also shines a light on just how many elected federal officials embrace a misguided view of "gun rights" over the very safety of their constituents.

The U.S. Senate just keeps earning its low ratings. Wednesday's refusal to enact reasonable new restrictions on gun ownership shows how a combination of cowardice and institutional inaction end up thwarting the will of 90 percent of the American people. It also shines a light on just how many elected federal officials embrace a misguided view of "gun rights" over the very safety of their constituents.

At issue was a publicly popular amendment calling for universal background checks for gun purchasers, including at gun shows and certain other transactions now exempted. It would have outlawed a national gun registry.

But opponents in thrall to the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups twisted the debate, maintaining that expanded background checks would curtail legitimate gun buyers and arguing as if the bill would have created a registry. Instead, public safety and lowering the likelihood that the mentally ill or criminals could get their hands on guns, they filibustered the bipartisan compromise amendment, resulting in unaltered gun purchase rules. In the end, four Democrats joined Republicans to kill an up-or-down vote on a bill co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, and Pennsylvania's own Patrick Toomey, Republican, both of whom have top ratings from the NRA. That's some wacky politics.

The people who voted against this common-sense bill talk a good game about the Second Amendment, conveniently forgetting the "well-ordered Militia" part of its language and championing all and any guns at any time to anybody. They actually believe that the more guns out there, the better. What it really boils down to is their fear: Fear that if they dare to stand up for citizen safety, someone even more addled about gun "rights" will challenge them in the primary, and they might lose their job.

So just four months after the wholesale slaying of 20 young children in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, 41 Republican and four Democratic senators ignored the impassioned requests of bereaved parents and refused to support expanded background checks. The measure died. Thanks to their inaction, more people will die from gun violence.

Elected officials like this are nothing but self-serving cowards. They should be voted out of office.